Читать книгу The Fatal Cup: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and the strange deaths of his relations - John Price Williams - Страница 61

The course of Mrs Abercromby’s illness, its swiftness and fatality, was to be duplicated a few months later, and in that case there is now little doubt that poison was responsible. Whatever her motives for making a will, her death was doubly fortunate for Wainewright. It enabled Eliza to receive a small bequest of £100 to ease the family’s financial burdens and, without benefit of mother-in-law, allowed a bold scheme for alleviating Wainewright’s chronic shortage of money to be put into place.

In the meantime, any little sum helped. Helen, who had come of age on March 12 1830 wrote from Linden House in August to the Board of Ordnance asking for the pension of £10 a year which she had had since the death of her father in 1811 to be continued, as it had expired when she reached 21. The letter is written from beginning to end without a full stop as if it had been dashed off without thought – or perhaps had been taken down verbatim while it was being dictated by her relatives:

…(I) have attained the age of 21 years, am totally unprovided for, being also deprived of the support of my mother who died August last, and require the continuance of the assistance of the Honourable Board whom I trust will take my case into consideration and direct that the allowance may be continued to me for which I shall be ever grateful.

I have the Honor (sic) to be Sir, Your very humble servant

Helen Abercromby

JOHN PRICE WILLIAMS

61